The Seamstress of Hulda Street(8-Chapter Challenge for @justwriteit)

Chapter Six

The letter lay unfolded between a clutter of empty bottles, the deeded message having just been dropped by its reader in hysterical anguish. Word from Daegol had finally arrived and his latest attempt at finding a cure had once again been unsuccessful. 

For whatever reason, the news stung Rose more than the previous times she had received the bad tidings from the man. She truly believed that Daegol would come through on this occasion. 

And as the seamstress stared at the alchemist's words, a tear ran down her cheek. Her heart began to throb and she yearned to be comforted, even if it was just by a memory. Taking her eyes off of the terrible news, she glided over to the simmering vat, where shortly her love appeared through its magical contents. 

'I've failed you again,' Rose muttered to him as she placed a cheek on the glass, her tears soon falling like raindrops on a window pane. 'I'm sorry. I truly am.' She briefly hung her head. 'Maybe I've been a fool. Maybe there is no cure to be found. Once more, Daegol's asking for more blood to try again, but I don't know if I can continue this. It feels like I'm in a never ending, recurring fantasy.' 

Rose got lost in her love's eyes, where eventually the past, the best of times the two had had together seemed to reflect out from his gaze as if she was summoning them. She recalled the Festival of Villages where the young from all over the region came to mingle. It was the first time they had met. The first time she had seen his beauty. She then recalled the secret oak where they shared their first kiss underneath the ancient tree. It made Rose beam. It made her wipe away her tears. She wanted to experience that again. She wanted that life back. She wanted out of this misery she had found herself in. 

'No, I will not abandon you,' Rose finally said intently, 'I will not abandon finding a cure. I refuse to give up. I refuse to let those disgusting filthy beasts defeat me and my love. I will not let them win. I will continue as always. Until I breathe my dying breath.' 

As she caressed the glass, an idea soon invaded her thoughts and swirled like snow on a blustery winter's eve. And the notion morphed and grew until a bigger plot spread like a spider's web. 

'Would it work?' Rose asked herself now with menacing contemplation. 'Perhaps. Perhaps. Yes, that's what I'll do. And surely this time. Surely this time will end the waiting and hoping once and for all.' 

Rose withdrew her love back into concealment before staring back at the letter Daegol had sent. Then with a flick of her finger, the parchment and its envelope ignited and flamed out of existence, its wisps of smoke tingling the seamstress's senses with ambition and drive that she hadn't felt since the beginning of her ordeal. 

'I will return shortly, my love, and tell you, show you my scheme.' Rose took in a deep breath, marched upstairs, traipsed through the painting, sauntered down the dim corridor and into her shop, where she walked past the drugged out woman's clothes that were now gleaming as if new and hanging on a rack. 

Over at the counter, Rose scooped up the newspaper Emma had brandished the other day and was quick to find the advertisement that the girl had shown her. 

'A nanny is what Mr Bronfell wants, and a nanny and much more he shall get,' Rose said before setting her eyes on the portrait accompanying the classified, and onto the man himself and his two children. 

And behind the three, set on a wall, and which Rose had just noticed, was a painting of Mrs Bronfell. The woman, the wife and mother, had died a year ago, her absence likely the reason why a nanny position was opening up in the household. Her death, of which the newspapers had said was natural and in her sleep, had been the talk of the city. And like Mr Bronfell, she had a secret beastly companion. 

Rose's attention drew back to the children. She was more than certain the two harbored wolf pups yet not ready to show themselves. But they were not to be touched, not to be harmed unlike Mr Bronfell and the many others possible if her plot were to succeed. 

With a bit of fury now joining her aspiration, Rose scanned the details the position entailed and demanded, and said, 'I'll have to close the shop completely on the weekdays but doing that pales in comparison to what it could bring. And getting the position? Well, that will be the easiest part.' 

A flutter of a blind shortly aroused Rose away from her pondering, a window ajar to let in some cool, dry air. But something else soon wafted in from the outside, from the streets beyond, making Rose's nose twitch with unease and discomfort. It was the stench of the untransformed beta werewolf she had detected the other night after leaving Daegol's laboratory. And the horrible creature still smelled of anger, bitterness and being on the hunt. 

'Surely, this is just coincidence,' Rose said to nobody, though the idea of being prey herself quickly took over her thoughts. She folded the newspaper and went outside, taking only a step towards the night. 

The stench was stronger now and it was growing. It was drifting down from above. 

Rose craned her head and scanned the roofs like the other day. And that's when she saw it, saw a looming silhouette skulking between chimney stacks before disappearing into the darkness. The sight made her skin crawl and riddled her bones with a tremble, a rarity for her. 

'See rain coming, young lady?' came a voice, it slurred as usual. 'A storm brewing, perhaps? If so, I'll be ready for it this time.' 

Rose looked back down to see Mr Fry standing in front of her. He was carrying an umbrella, the man looking at it fondling. 

'The skies look clear, Mr Fry,' Rose replied in a rush, the beggar's newly obtained possession taking her fancy. And as the stench of the werewolf faded with its departure, she hastily  continued, saying, 'Oh, what a lovely umbrella. Something I must have. Any chance of parting with it? I'll give much more than it's worth.' 

Rose took out a note from her pocket, the only money she had on her, and Mr Fry was instant in snatching it from her grasp, dropping the umbrella to ground. 

'Any chance we're lovers?' Mr Fry asked, as he now glared adoringly at the note. 

Rose didn't answer, didn't purse her lips at the ungentlemanly query as she always did. And without caring if anyone would see, she snapped her fingers and the umbrella shot up into her hand. She then made off, quickly finding a desolate and pitch black laneway nearby, the only occupants scurrying rats and cockroaches. 

A flourish of the umbrella sent it whipping open above her head. 

'Volare,' Rose then said, bringing about a faint rushing noise dancing throughout the night. 

Louder the sound grew until its source, a thundering and whipping wind, barreled into the laneway. Rose gripped the umbrella's handle tighter just in time as the gale caught its underside. 

The gamp shot into the air, taking Rose with it. Past windows she went, and too fast for the residents of the buildings surrounding her to notice if they were so happening to be peering out.  

It was when her entire body had escaped the walled confines of the laneway and her view was of a thatched and shingled world, the First Minister's golden clocked dome in all its grandeur off in the distance, that Rose mumbled, 'Volantum prohibere.' 

Immediately, the windstorm carrying her petered out to a breeze and she was left to float down to the edge of a roof, the heels of her boots tapping lightly on the ceramic slates. Then as she folded the umbrella, she looked before her and saw the menacing silhouette darting away, off towards the more lavish parts of the city, the man's long hair cascading over the upturned collar of an ulster coat. 

The beast was retreating back to where it came, Rose was sure. And she wanted to follow, to find out who this filth was, to see if its appearance had anything to do with her, but she didn't want to endanger her newly hatched plan. She also desired to get back to her love to tell him of the scheme, to gaze into his eyes for longer, and she needed to message Daegol, explaining to him that there will be a delay in the next batch of blood and to prepare for it to be more potent. 

Rose opened the umbrella above her head once again before plunging back into the laneway below.